The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to uplink transmit power control during random access procedures.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, (e.g., a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, or a New Radio (NR) system). A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations or access network nodes, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
In some wireless systems, base stations and UEs may communicate using directional transmissions (e.g., beams), where beamforming techniques may be applied using one or more antenna arrays to generate beams in different directions. For example, a base station may transmit downlink communications (e.g., synchronization signals, data, etc.) to a UE using a transmit beam in a particular direction, and the UE may in turn receive the downlink communications on a receive beam in an opposite direction. In some cases, a high transmit power for uplink communications sent from a UE and received at a base station may result in interference for other users attempting to communicate with the base station. Alternatively, the uplink transmit power from the UE may too low, failing to meet a link budget for uplink communications received at the base station.